To Rajhans Ek

As a connoisseur of theatre, I consider the playwriting of Ra. Ra. Datta Patil significant. His writing does not descend from thin air; it emerges from the five elements of nature—earth, water, fire, air, and space. Or, to put it more simply, his writing is important because it is firmly rooted in the soil. For this, the writer must carry the soil in his heart, and Datta Patil possesses that quality.

At the centre of this play is a young man from a farming family. He is highly educated and, more importantly, a poet. Yet, because he is a farmer, he remains unmarried even after passing the conventional age for marriage. He represents the highly educated, unmarried young men living in the villages of contemporary Maharashtra. But he is also a poet, and it is this dimension that makes his inner world and emotional suffocation deeply unsettling to us. Datta Patil’s writing conveys this anguish to the reader with remarkable intensity.

Beginning with the melancholy and loneliness that characterise the lives of young farmers in today’s villages, the play goes on to offer an extraordinary portrayal of a poet’s fierce inner struggle. The experience it evokes is truly exceptional.

— Ranganath Pathare